Is having fun the driving force of Computer Vision?

In the last two decades the driving force behind the intensive research done in these fields were the security, surveillance and defense applications and in Autonomous Systems. The ability to capture visual data and detect people, hazardous situations and threats were exploited to increase individual, national and international safety. Israeli companies have gained substantial reputation as Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence leaders in security and defense applications, Rafael, Elbit, ElOp, Nice and Mobileye in Autonomous System to name a few. It is interesting to follow the process of knowledge and expertise flow from these companies to applications in other fields, for example Given Imaging (bought by Medtronic), a medical company that develops a non-invasive disposable camera the size of a capsule for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal track diseases. The initial founding for the company was provided by Elron Electronic Industries, Israel's leading technology holding company, in cooperation with Rafael who provided the initial technology and technical knowhow.

But things have evolved and nowadays it seems that although our world can still be safer and more secure, the forces that move technology forwards are related to having fun. Visual data plays a very important and a constantly increasing role in multimedia and entertainment. It started in the gaming arena, where more and more sophisticated graphics led to more and more powerful Graphic Processing Units and advanced algorithms. Gaming has become a major player where advanced Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence algorithms and expertise are needed for. State of the art computer vision and machine learning is now all over the social networks. People search for images of themselves, their friends and constantly tag and refer to them. Sharing your thoughts and ideas via textual based media is not enough. People are communicating via sharing and exchange of images.

All these require advanced mathematics, fast algorithms and definitely a lot of work for vision specialists. So, will having fun advance the fields of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence in the future? Probably yes. But it also seems that until our world resolves all its conflicts, surveillance and defense companies will still be major players and technology leaders in these fields.